minogue. >> you can have the last word on our website and follow my tweets. "the rachel maddow show" is up next. hey, happy friday. thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. deal or no deal on what should be by all rights a quiet, sleepy summer friday in july, the kind of summer friday where news goes to die. instead, the political world is still abuzz tonight over the knock down, brag out fight still happening in washington, the fight to avoid disaster. the very real prospect of the united states, for the first time in our history, purposely defaulting on our debt. it would result in a government shutdown, it would result in a down grading of america's credit rating and us going back into recession and economic calamity in all caps. after five straight days of

high-stakes negotiations with congressional leaders at the white house over whether to raise the debt ceiling, today, no meeting. today, no negotiations. today was a day for leaders to take a breather, gather to see if reaching a deal is even possible at this point. it was sort of a legislative equivalent of a boxer heading back into his corner to gather himself and get ready for the next round, but as the posturing from both sides continues, there was a reminder this fight does not have many rounds left. the treasury department, which has been juggling the nation's accounts announced today it is officially out of options in terms of moving enough money around to make room for more debt. they say they have done everything they can and it is now time for congress to act. well, most of the actionç was happening behind closed doors. president obama did use the lowly negotiations today to take his case, once again, straight

to the american people. to hold his third nationally televised press conference in a little more than two weeks. >> the notion that somehow the american people aren't sold is not the problem. the problem is members of congress are ideologically. this is not a matter of the american people knowing what the right thing to do is, this is a matter of congress doing the right thing and reflecting the will of the american people. >> this is a matter of congress doing the right thing, he says. congressional leaders now have a little more than two weeks before the country could officially catastrophically default. it is crunch time in washington. >> i am going to keep on working, and i'm going to keep on trying, and what i'm going to do is to hope that in part this debate has focussed the american people's attention a little bit more and will subject congress

to scrutiny, and, i think increasingly the american people will say to themselves if a party or politician is constantly taking the position my way or the highway, constantly being locked into, you know, ideologically rigid positions, that we're going to remember at the polls. >> president obama doing a little political science there, not exactly pund itry, but political science how the republican mindset led to this intransigent republican position on the country defaulting on our debt and shutting down, and he doesn't so much argue against that mindset as he does just describeç it, and he says thiss the republican mindset and i don't think the rest of the country shares that mindset. when republican primary voters choose their presidential

nominee, when the angry base yells out politicians, those folks, for whatever reason, appear to have a no compromise mindset. president obama believes that mindset is not the mindset of american people, and in november of next year when the country votes and it's not just base republicans but republicans who don't necessarily share that intransigent mindset, and it is independents and it is democrats, their hardlined stance is going to be rejected by the country as a whole. that's essentially president obama's argument. this will be settled at the ballot box. only problem, what if it is not the whole country voting in the next election. what if likely independent voters and likely democratic voters in particular do not get into the voting booth in the first place while likely republicans do? all across the country right now, there is what looks very much like a coordinated effort among republican legislatures

and governors to pass laws making it significantly harder to vote and harder to register to vote in this country. the legislatures introduce bills that would diminish access to voting booths in 40 states. this is happening all over the country and all at once. in maine, for 38 years you could register to vote on the same day you voted, 38 years, now that's been abolished. in iowa, republicans have passed a bill that would shorten the amount of time that early voting can happen prior to an election, because, you know, not like iowa has had any issues to long lines at their polling places. because the supreme court said you can vote wherp you go to college, no longer in south carolina, thanks to the republican legislature and the republican governor there. in florida, republicans have just passed a bill that makes it hard for third party groups to

register people to vote. the law is so old draconian, the league of women voters, the paragon has just announced that they are ending their voter registration efforts in the state of florida altogether. in kansas, sam brownback just signed into law a type of photo i.d. in order to vote bill. that was championed by secretary of state in kansas. chris coback is the man who wrote sp-1070. he's not from arizona, doesn't serve in government there, but mr. coback likes to write conservative legislation he shops to other states and has been trying in a very big way of spreading the gospel of making it harder to vote all across the country. not just in kansas, but everywhere. earlier this week chris coback

wrote urging politicians in other states to do what he and sam brownback have done in kansas, the case republicans broadly make for the urgent need for these new make it harder to vote laws is that voter fraud is wide spread across the country and a real threat. as evidence, there were 221 incidents of voter fraud reported in kansas between 1997 and 2010. seven of which yielded convictions. that's the evidence. 13 years, 7 convictions. convictions? detailed in a report from mr. coback's office in kansas. they consist of the following. one instance of electioneering, so campaigning too close to a polling place and six incidents of double voting, people voting in kansas or another state or two different counties in kansas. again, the seven convictions

that are evidence to make voting harder is one case of electioneering and six cases of double voting. here's the thing, whether or not those seven cases seem like a reign of voter terror to you, none of the things for which those people were convicted would be prevented by kansas' new voter i.d. law. making somebody show a photo i.d. before they vote does not prevent them from campaigning too close to a polling place, doesn't prevent them from voting in two different places. if they had to show photo i.d., show it in both places. none of those issues would be prevented or solved by the remedy that has been instituted in kansas and across the country to address this supposed problem. so congratulations, you have made it harder to vote and harder to register to vote and still not solved the problem you

claim to have your hair on fire about. one way to get booze was getting it prescribed to you by a doctor, get booze prescribed for nervous tension or indigestion. is liquor good for indigestion? of course not. so liquor prescription forms like this one shows you historically how much people wanted booze and this was one way to get it. it doesn't tell you whiskey cures of tummy ache. is there aç voter fraud in thi country? no, no evidence of a big voter fraud problem in this country and there never has been. would these laws stop the minuscule amount of voter fraud that there is? no. the conviction rate for people impersonating other voters is slightly south of the conviction rate of unauthorized time travel and that's what photo i.d. would supposedly stop, so why aren't republicans letting people vote without photo i.d.s now? what is this for, what does this cure? where are republicans all across

the country, all at the same time trying to make it harder to vote? it is an axium of politics that in a general election when voter turnout is high, that's bad for the republican party. the fewer people that cast votes in an election, the better for the republican candidate. any effort to depress voter turnout is a plus for the republican party, plus these laws make it harder for population groups that vote more democratic. the students who find it harder to vote in south carolina, they, coincidentally voted overwhelmingly for barack obama in 2008. you know what group is least likely to have a photo i.d. to vote in wisconsin? african-american men. 55% of african-american men in that state have a photo i.d.

voted for barack obama by a march gin of 95-5. occasionally republicans tip their hand on this, as they have done in texas when texas republicans were cranking down voting rights, making it harder to vote than ever before. texas republicans showed an exception. the exception irç for anybody wo has a concealed carry permit for a weapon. what do you think it is about having a gun that makes the republican legislators of texas relax about your eligibility to vote? joining us now is a man who frankly needs no introduction, civil rights actionist jesse jackson. so happy to have you on the show tonight, thank you for joining us. first, if you agree with the basic premise here, it is getting harder to vote and the way it's getting harder to vote targets democratic voters. >> restricting vote and in some

cases in florida vote after sunday on serge than on tuesday when they are working, for example, but people who sought to deny their right to vote ask to suppress the votes. men do not have a birth certificate, so it amounts to a poll tax. also with the state universities, a state i.d. in their schools to vote, in texas use a gun registration. this is really about restricting the process. people are fighting wars for democracy and use the notion they can certify elections around the world. >> you have been working on voting rights and on expanding voter registration as an activist since the '60s. when do you think explains the

urgency to do this now, the concerted effort to change voting laws all at once right now? >> state law state, but white woman couldn't set on juries, 18-year-olds could serve inç vietnam, but they could not vote. you could vote on the campus you attend school, finally won that fight. our multilingual, we won that fight. each chance they keep losing big elections by bigger margins. in florida in 2008, they lost but they won. in ohio, we had dry machines and wet people, they won by that mar margin, but 40 states, those are disabled and people of color. the problem of justice much play its role to investigate and defend people's protected right to vote.

>> what do you think the department of justice should specifically do? do you think this is a job for individual states and should be investigated specifically or do you want a nationwide probe? >> it has to be nationwide, but each state has its own scheme. for example, imagine in michigan where the governor observes the right to suspend that mayor and council, all those voters put in an emergency manager who then has the power to suspend all labor negotiations and subsidiary assets. that's a voter oppression, undemocratic, for example. all students on campuses, and in 2000, president barack ran in 2008, whole campuses could vote. they are targeting students, senior disabled, black and brown

people. it is violating for section stopping any attempt to get preclearance to do the scheme in florida by the department of justice. >> on the issue of voter >> on the issue of voter registration, in 1984, when you campaign registered over one million new voters, the obama campaign, another democratic campaign since have focussed on registering new voters. and in florida in particular, seeing women voters get out of the voter registration gig. that's been something that has been so noncontroversial in modern political history. >> intimidation. if you do not in two days turn in the people registered to vote, you can be jailed, so they stepped back this time. we've been registering people in shopping center malls, schools, churches. war by democracy in iraq, if you will, in afghanistan, if you will, but here we are at this

time trying to restrict the number of days, voting more expensive. this is the part of the anti-barack obama mainland that's sweeping the country. these are the people that raised the debt limit 19 times for all of america because this is not about raising the debt limit. this is about, in fact, another way to undermine the president. we as a people, as a nation, ought to fight back. >> reverend jesse jackson. sir, happy and honored to have you on the show tonight. thank you very much. rupert murdoch's giant media empire is in huge trouble you may have heard. fox news channel is part of that giant media empire. fox news channel covering the scandal, it's amazing. from sprint. its powerful tools help you work faster and smarter so you can get back to playing "angry birds."

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states? 27 television stations, the new york post, the fox news channel, dow jones and the wall street journal. will it bring the rupert murdoch empire down here in the u.s.? today we got part of the answer to that question when the scandal took out the publisher of the wall street journal. les hinton, for 12 years, les hinton was the chairman of news international, publishes "news of the world," the sun, and the sunday times. that means les hinton was in charge when "news of the world" allegedly hacked into 13-year-old milly dowler's cell phone, deleting voice mails and giving her family false hope she was alive. les hinton was in charge in 2005 when the "news of the world" apparently tried to hack the

phones of the families of the 7/7 london transit bombings, les hinton was in charge when they hacked banking, legal files, and tax affairs. hinton was in charged when "news of the world" was charged of hacking into the phones of 9/11 victims, and until today les hinton was in charge of the wall street journal. he has, today, resigned. he feels it is proper to resign from news corp. the phone hacking scandal first broke five years ago when a private investigator and the former royal reporter of "news of the world" were arrested and jailed for hacking into the cell phones ofç members of the roya household. after that, les hinton testified twice, once in 2007, once in 2009. he told lawmakers he had carried out a thorough investigation and the hacking was limited to that

one royal reporter. since then, sun and the sunday times have been implicated in the hacking. seven other current or former "news of the world" staffers, including editors have been arrested. "news of the world" itself has been shut down after 168 years. the british government is conducting an inquiry, rupert murdoch has apologized to the girl, milly dowler's family. then he talked to the press afterward. >> and i apologize and i have nothing further to say. >> nothing further except the full page apologies he's running this weekend. of course, now the resignation of les hinton, until today, publisher of the wall street journal and the person who succeeded hinton in the british job, rebekah brooks resigned this morning. potentially next on the chopping

block, somebody even closer to him, rupert murdoch's own son james who has been busy not explaining himself, paying off phone hacking victims on the side. this is a damaging scandal. but that leaves some of the as-yet surviving parts of his media empire in the position of having to cover their boss' really big problem. when that kind of thing goes badly, that kind of thing goes really, really badly. i have seen a lot of amazing things come out of the morning show program on the fox news channel, but although i will admit of having low expectations of howç the fox news channel morning show would handle the murdoch scandal story, i never anticipated it would look like this. >> rebekah brooks has now resigned as chief executive of our parent company's british news corporation.

this morning we're finding out the pentagon suffered one of its largest hacking events ever, a psycher theft of more than 125,000 files. the pentagon says they were stolen by a foreign government. what do you make of this particular hacking scandal with the "news of the world"? >> well, the "news of the world" is a hacking scandal, it can't be denied, but the issue is why are so many people piling on at this point? we know it's a hacking scandal, shouldn't we get beyond it and deal with the issue of hacking? citi corp., insurance companies have been hacked into. we have a serious hacking problem in the country and this morning the government was obviously hacked into for 125,000 files. we have to find a way to deal with this hacking problem. i would also say, by the way, citigroup, great bank, bank of america, great bank. are they getting the same kind of attention that took place

less than a year ago? >> there's a crucial -- citigroup and bank of america were the victims of the hackers, news corp. is the hacker. that's the difference. this is just one of the recent hacking scandals. no, this is the case where -- wow. but it is not just the fox news channel that is getting into this kind of spectacular pr pretzel. it's not just them. >> intercepting information like that has to be investigated. i think what there shouldn't be, we've learned, don't rush to judgment, give people the presumption of innocence. i think how high up it goes is a question and one we shouldn't be jumping to conclusion about it. >> former client of news corp., repeatedly a close friend of rupert murdoch, and the mayor of new york city on 9/11, and in

that quote there he was talking about the fbi investigation into the potential hacking of 9/11 victims' cell phones. they said last night if rudy giuliani runs from president, this is going to take spectacular spinning. that is going to be even harder. joining us now, e.j. dionne, washington post columnist. e.j., nice to see you, thank you for joining us. how much does rupert murdoch's political influence affect the importance of this as a big business scandal? >> well, first of all, i think one of the reasons we are talking about this tonight is because of his political influence. you saw it there in that rudy giuliani comment. this person could make or break politicians. he's done it for years on three continents, australia, great britain, and the united states. he was very active in new york city politics, and, you know, up

to now, being rupert murdoch it's a particular problem for prime minister cameron, his close aide, andy coulson turned out to have been involved in the phone hacking scandal of "news of the world," so i think it influences why we're talking about him, and it's a good reason to talk about him. >> i think seeing this across the pond dramatically today with the publisher of the wall street

journal getting ousted and was a close tie in this, it was his patch on which things went so horriblebly wrong. he's been running the wall street journal for quite sometime as its publisher. what do you think changes in u.s. politics and u.s. media if this crossing the pond thing comes to fruition, how much would that change things that fox news or at the wall street journal or any part of rupert murdoch's empire? >> you could sell fox to the coke brothers. i wonder what would happen at fox news, but i think both of us know, i have a lot of friends and colleagues there who are excellent journalists who really understand journalism's public interest role, and when murdoch bought the journal, there was a great fear of this mixing of his opinions with the news pages. i mean, the journal has always had a conservative editorial page, and i think murdoch is

really worried about this, because this was going to be his proud achievement. he's really trying to take on the new york times in new york, and he wanted the journal to be the dominant paper in new york. i think this creates a lot of image problems, and, i think, it's going to raise a lot of questions. when you have new york politicians saying let's investigate whether he hacked 9/11 victims, that suggests some of the power is already out of the way. >> e.j., i share your respect for a lot of individual reporters at the wall street journal. typically on national security they've done incredible work nobody else has been able to do in print, but i wonder if you think if the wall street journal has noticebly changed at all since it became a rupert murdoch property. we saw what happened with the times of london when he bought it, it deteriorated, and fast, and became what it is today, a totally useless newspaper in my opinion. do you think there has been any erosion at the journal?

>> my answer, i hate to sound so wishy washy is yes and no. some days i look at headlines and say gee, that seems to me a very conservative spin on this story, but other days when i see stories in the journal that do not reflect any spin at all. i read it every morning. i'm not sure it crossed that line, but i'm reminded of the wonderful quotation of michael harrington, the great american socialist who says the journal's news pages are as informative as the news stories are quaintly reactional. >> senior fell low at the institution and somebody i like talking to everything that i talk to you about. e.j., thanks so much for being on the show. >> thank you. >> the pretend scientists who i employ in various daydreams have

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federal regulations for $200, please, correct question, what is the easiest explanation for why it is a good idea to have a clean water act to protect our water? on june 22, 1969, there was so much oil and pollution in ohio's river that it caught fire, and it wasn't the first time. imaginary alex trebeck is so disappointed in house republicans right now. ♪ going to the bank without going to the bank... that's a step forward. with chase quickdeposit on your smartphone,

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this is an oxy moron. look, this is a river that's on fire. a river, which is a body of water, having to be sprayed down with other water in order to put it out. this is the river just outside cleveland, ohio, burning out of control in june 1969. the fire costs tens of thousands of damage because the blames were high enough and hot enough to damage some of the railroad bridges that span that river. this is not hell. when the river caught fire in 1969, it is not the first time to have done so.

it did in 1952 as well, a million and a half damage that time. in 1952, the river also caught fire in 1948, also in 1941, also in 1936, also in 1922, also in 1912, and three times in the 1880s. by the time the 1969 fire of the river and the river burning through those railroad bridges, time magazine describes raw sewage spurting daily into the river from busted pipes. they wrote some river, chocolate brown, oily, bubbling with sub surface gases oozes rather than flows. "no visible life, not even low forms such as leashes and sludge worms that usually thrive on waste." yum. by 1969, a national revulsion of toxic slime burning its way

through cleveland and the mighty hudson in new york having bacteria levels 170 times what is considered safe, headlines and scenes like that helped catalyze support for doing something about it. in 1972, congress passed the clean water act that richard nixon supported the act but did not want to pay for it, so he vetoed it. congress overrode the veto and now our rivers don't catch fire anymore. this week in washington, the house of representatives voted to go back to the old way we used to deal with it. every republican in the house and a handful of democrats voted yesterday for a bill to get the federal government out of water pollution control and let that area of policy go back to the states like it used to be, like it was back in the good old days. joining us now in person, melissa harris-perry, professor

at tulane university and msnbc contributor. thank you for being here. >> came for the party, stayed for the show. >> very good. the good old days. this is not going to become law because senate democrats are not going to let it, at least i think, but is this a landmark vote anyway just because of the substance about it and what it says about the approach between the two parties? >> look, i think so. at some point earlier today we were asking the question, have we forgotten this, have we forgotten rivers can, in fact, catch on fire, that this is how bad our pollution was, and the answer is in part, yes, we have actually forgotten. you and i have talked before about what it means to be in a long struggle and fighting and failing and fighting and failing, but when you fight and win, the win is never forever, then you have to keep struggling around these questions. we're seeing it on reproductive rights, voting rights, and environmental protection. >> environmental regulation is

in the largest sense about protecting the common good, the thing from which we all benefit. the common good usually does not have very god lobbyists if it has them at all. what's the anecdote procedurally or structurally to the millions of dollars poll companies are willing to spend to wipe these regulations off the books. >> on the one hand, common goods don't have lobbyists, but that's what we're meant to be. the scariest is this big scary awful thing that's somehow outside of us. when your government is a free and fair democratically elected in regular elections government, then it's not some scary thing outside of you, it is you. it is, in fact, that we, by being together in communal space, we say look, there are these community assets, air, water, land, national defense. we know that individually we always have short time horizons. not malicious or bad or evil, we

can only see so far, only see our own good, so we come together in government, freely elected, not all governments, that say look, we will protect our common good, our inner child that can't speak for itself, our job as a government is to protect that, so government regulations, in particular, federal government regulations are precisely the interest groups that these sorts of common interests are to have. >> that last point about federal regulations and being a federal issue is so critically important right now, what's going on in environmental issues is these republicans who cast the vote don't want to get rid of water restrictions, we want to let the states take care of this. the federal government should get out and this should be handled by the states. >> at this point, the states are hemorrhaging. they can barely keep firefighters and police officers on the street. are they now going to take this over? even if they wanted to, even with all the good will of the

states, they don't have the capacity to do it. here's what happens when zats, localities, get vulnerable economic kbli, they willingly let polluters to come in. look, we have no jobs. the real crisis is jobs. if there are not jobs, there's a corporation willing to build on your creek bed, then in these kinds of circumstances, these communities have a real incentive to do so. the states, communities, and neighborhoods don't have to make these kind of tough choices. >> that's very smart. i would not have thought to put it that way. that's very, very smart. great to have you here, melissa, thanks very much. melissa harris-perry is an msnbc contributor. all right, as greater los angeles braces for the mother of all preplanned traffic jams, the question is jet propulsion of sweat propulsion? i know it sounds disgusting.

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programming for the weekend, this sunday afternoon on msnbc, our network will be airing two documentaries of which we were all very proud and i was able to work on. on sunday at 3:00 p.m. eastern, the assassination of dr. tillere tiller. at 4:00 p.m. we'll air the mcveigh tapes. that documentary is toldin timo. those start at 3:00 eastern on sunday. ñwkó

within the no 405 freeway. it's carmageddon. tonight they are closing down ten miles of this major los angeles freeway. they are closing it for the weekend. a 60-hour experience so they can take down the southern side of the mulholland bridge. a creative transit destruction. they will haul away 4,000 tons

of construction concrete. nobody knows what it will look like except with no way through for the 500,000 cars that go through that way, you probably won't go way through your car. honoring the undebentable los angeles blues, jetblue did an offer, for $4, you can flew from long beach for fares they sold out quickly. tom vanderbilt tweeted this, "given airport travel time, security, i bet a good cyclist

could travel from burbank to long beach faster than jetblue. they decided traffic by was right. door-to-door, burbank to long beach, jetblue is not trying to win this, they did make space on their plane for the flier to complete with the cyclist. tomorrow the airline passenger will head to the airport and the cyclist will head on it at the same time.

the wolfpack tweeted today this will be a lawful contest. wolfpack a will be timing legal. i love this story. i love los angeles can get fun getting ready for the best weekend ever and jetblue had the space for the race who are the john henry guys. these wolfpacks are going to win. i'm bad at predictions. they have the bikes, the tattoos. they are going to win. the bikes. it's the bikes. [ male announcer ] this...is the network -- a network of possibilities. in here, the planned combination of at&t and t-mobile would deliver our next generation mobile broadband experience

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congress took a break this week from denouncing the power of the federal government to do things like stopping our rivers from catching on fire, they took a break from decrying the tyranny of the federal government sticking its nose into everything to sticking its nose to washington, d.c. the local government of the district of government put through the annual ritual of the republicans and congress overruling the d.c.'s decision making. they do this every year. saying they are fundamental value is preserving local preservation, every year it spells hypocrisy out in the skies. every year it makes me crazy

makes we love washington, d.c. this year the district showed a way to make me very happy. they declared the ricky to be the native cocktail in washington, d.c. july is ricky month. it's the easiest and cheapest and most accessible cocktails invented. it was invented in washington, d.c. in the 1880s. it's now the downtown site of the d.c. downtown motel. this week star d.c. bartender derek brown, as well as the drinking luminaira of washington, they celebrated the ricky. you can totally make this. this takes no skill.

you need a tall glass, ice, club soda and booze. you have to not minds something tart and not mind the taste of liquor. if you're okay with those things this will cure of you gin and tonics forever. don't fill it all the way. add two ounces of spirits. use gin or borbon or a rye ricky. 2 ounces of booze. here's the ricky part, ready? get your half of lime and squeeze it directly into the glass. you are won't get scrurvy. add more ice.